Repent

Addendum #50

The word conjures up a vision up a disheveled man standing on a sidewalk and holding a sign with that word crudely lettered on it while busy people pass by. The man with the sign is part of the urban scenery, one more intrusion, though one that few people on their way to their next task or pleasure are going to take seriously. Given the context, which on one hand is overwhelming, as in the enormity of the Christian heritage, and on the other hand, ridiculous, given the setting and the impossible bluntness of the word, the lack of response is understandable. “What is this strange man to me?” is a fair thought. He may be deranged, though at least he isn’t brandishing an automatic weapon.

I read a fair number of articles that offer pieces of solutions to the crisis the planet is facing, a crisis that dwarfs the political idiocy, meanness, and malfeasance we see every day in the United States. The articles are reasonable and intelligent because they are written by reasonable and intelligent people. I dare say that most of the people know they represent a small voice crying in a large wilderness, which is to say that the world-at-large runs on unreason, as, again, the United States abundantly testifies. Nonetheless, the writers of such articles persevere, which is commendable and then some. Voices of sanity matter, however much they are pushed aside in the society’s rush to “double down on the status quo,” as Richard Powers put it in his novel The Overstory. Thought tries to somehow wrestle with thoughtlessness—an old story, I’m afraid.

Thus I go back to the man with the sign because the import of his word is—to use a much abused word—spiritual. What humankind faces is a spiritual challenge that begins with honesty, a place that is not necessarily included in the inventory of spiritual matters since more pressing issues—salvation, faith, and redemption—have tended to control the conversation. The door that shows the way to eternity has an understandably powerful allure. Our attachment to being here tends to exist in a direct proportion to our unwillingness to recognize how transient our being here really is. Celebrating our evanescence has never been high on the human list, although traditional societies had a firm grip on the cyclic nature of life on Earth, a grip that put our perishing in perspective. Obsessed as modern times have been with human achievement, particularly through the portal of invention, a focus on the old ways has been largely banished as being behind the linear, ever-inventive times. The old ways are not “news” and stem largely from the outlook of indigenous peoples who respect Earth first and last. They are also not devoted to money and profit, the prime animators of the so-called “economy.”

Despite the claims of schools, Earth is our chief teacher. The import of that learning is practical in myriad ways—paying attention to weather, plants, animals—but also spiritual in the sense that Earth is so much vaster than the human mind. Earth humbles us even while the daily experience of being here exhilarates us. One of the failings of what is very loosely called “civilization” is an inability to connect how we live on Earth—all the doings that are tied up with water, atmosphere, photosynthesis, currents in the oceans, to say nothing of how our spendthrift ways impact Earth—with the political processes that govern societies, processes that typically, if not always, involve the machinations of patriarchal power. Although endless fixes and stories are perpetrated about what is to be done by this or that leader or party, the central dilemma of living in a respectful, Earth-bound way goes by the board, as if the economic modes and the social arrangements trailing those modes were immemorial. And, given the annals of human greed, they have seemed immemorial. Princes and paupers have been around for a long time.

When the spiritual element is invoked, as in the United States, it invariably has to do with claiming that God is on the American side—an ace that silences all the other cards. A certain amount of self-righteous sanctimony is blended in with this while the wheels of power keep remorselessly and heedlessly turning, particularly since they can see no further than the next election. “Short-sighted” would be a mild word for this condition. It would be abjectly absurd if it were given even a mild consideration but such are the wages of electoral democracy. (Trump, who always has the wrong answer, would like to rid the democracy of elections in favor of a fascist boss who brooks no opposition.) The result of this condition in the United States is, as James Baldwin put it, a populace that is “controlled here by our confusion, far more than we know.” Baldwin, who was schooled in part by the evangelical church, recognized that “the political institutions of any nation are always menaced and are ultimately controlled by the spiritual state of that nation.” To put it bluntly, that state can be depraved or merely indifferent, mendacious, and narrow-minded. Meanwhile, we insist that we know what we are doing every clamorous day. What else can we do? Power, particularly as it seeks to consolidate, creates powerlessness.

The belief in fixes and solutions is very strong, even while the attendant political actions are well-nigh lunatic. Mere honesty—if you keep living this way your children and grandchildren, and maybe you too, are going to be in profound distress—seems tactless and oppressive. The sun is shining. What’s the problem? The lack of any deep perspective on human affairs, economic and political, is a very sore point. To slow down, to meditate, to promote an education devoted to caring for Earth, is just so much blather to those who have the various levers in their rapacious hands. To say “conserve” because Life depends on it may seem as far-fetched as the man with the “repent” sign. Both however signal the same impulse—we are taking for granted what should not be taken for granted. And both are urgent.